Quotes from The Bridge

Iain Banks ·  288 pages

Rating: (9.2K votes)


“I think the easiest people to fool are ourselves. Fooling ourselves may even be a necessary precondition for fooling others.”
― Iain Banks, quote from The Bridge


“There is only darkness, starless and complete. The waves glitter like a million dull knives.”
― Iain Banks, quote from The Bridge


“It was as if some magnetic repulsion, which before had kept our two carriages from meeting and passing, had now been reversed, and so sucked me inexorably forward, drawing me towards something my heart made clear I feared - or should fear - utterly, in the way some people are fatally attracted towards an abyss while standing on its very edge.”
― Iain Banks, quote from The Bridge


“He would never forget the feeling of that first year, the sense of freedom just being on his own gave him. He had his own room for the first time, his own money to spend as he wanted, his own food to buy and places to go and decisions to make; it was glorious, sublime.”
― Iain Banks, quote from The Bridge


“I luv the ded, this old baster sez to me when I wiz tryin to get some innfurmashin out ov him. You fukin old pervirt I sez, gettin a bit fed up by this time enyway, an slit his throate; ah asks you whare the fukin Sleeping Byootie woz, no whit kind of humpin you lyke.”
― Iain Banks, quote from The Bridge



“jammed inside the bastard for three hours.’). And that bridge, the bridge . . . have to make a pilgrimage to”
― Iain Banks, quote from The Bridge


“Future became Present, Present became Past. A truth so banal, so obvious and accepted that he had somehow managed to ignore it before.”
― Iain Banks, quote from The Bridge


“You don't belong to her and she doesn't belong to you, but you're both part of each other; if she got up and left now and walked away and you never saw each other again for the rest of your lives, and you lived an ordinary waking life for another fifty years, even so on your deathbed you would know she was part of you.”
― Iain Banks, quote from The Bridge


“This is not a long bridge, but it goes on for ever. I am not far from the bank, but I will never get there. I walk but I never move. Fast or slow, running, turning, doubling back, jumping, throwing myself or stopping; nothing makes any difference.”
― Iain Banks, quote from The Bridge


About the author

Iain Banks
Born place: in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
Born date February 16, 1954
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“It's fishy," Ivy said.
"More than fishy. It's like a whole shark." - Scarlet”
― Sophie Cleverly, quote from The Dance in the Dark


“Ironically people will thank a deity for "letting" them win a race, but blame a "witch" if they stumble, look for the nearest suspect, and kill them. Why not blame the deity? Why not accept the setback as easily as they accept the victory/ Time people grew up some, I think - and stopped looking for theoretical "somebodies" to blame for their own misfortunes.”
― Christina Engela, quote from Blachart


“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
― William Blake, quote from Auguries of Innocence


“2015 Caldecott Honor winner; and Battle Bunny, written with Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Matthew Myers. He also writes the”
― Mac Barnett, quote from The Terrible Two Get Worse


“When all the other animals, downcast looked upon the earth, he [Prometheus] gave a face raised on high to man, and commanded him to see the sky and raise his high eyes to the stars.”
― Ovid, quote from The Metamorphoses


Interesting books

Sisterhood Everlasting
(30.4K)
Sisterhood Everlasti...
by Ann Brashares
Complete Works
(7.7K)
Complete Works
by Arthur Rimbaud
172 Hours on the Moon
(9.2K)
172 Hours on the Moo...
by Johan Harstad
Empress Orchid
(19.9K)
Empress Orchid
by Anchee Min
Mockingbird
(25.3K)
Mockingbird
by Kathryn Erskine
Love the One You're With
(136.3K)
Love the One You're...
by Emily Giffin

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.